We are deeply saddened to share the news of the passing of our dear colleague and friend Konstanty (Sham) Sumorok, who passed away peacefully in his sleep on October 3, 2025, at the age of 77.
Born on February 19, 1948 in Leicester, England, Sham earned his B.Sc. (1969) and Ph.D. (1974) in Physics from the University of Birmingham. His career took him from Oxfordshire to CERN in Geneva in 1977, where he became part of the pioneering generation of experimental particle physicists who helped lay the foundations for modern collider physics. In 1986 he moved to the Boston area, joining MIT and settling in Arlington, MA, where he became a cornerstone of the MIT Particle Physics Collaboration (PPC) for nearly three decades. He retired from MIT in 2014.
Throughout his remarkable career, Sham made significant contributions to major particle physics experiments, including work that directly contributed to two Nobel Prizes in Physics—the 1984 prize for the discovery of the W and Z bosons with the UA1 collaboration, and the 2013 prize for the discovery of the Higgs boson with the CMS collaboration.
Within the CMS experiment, Sham’s impact was profound. He played a central role in the design, construction, and commissioning of the first CMS data acquisition (DAQ) system, where his precision, deep technical insight, and insistence on doing things right set standards that endure to this day. Those who worked closely with him remember his quiet confidence, his meticulous care for every detail, and his unwavering passion for the science.
Sham was a point of stability and strength in the MIT group, guiding the PPC through transitions from CDF at Fermilab to the new generations of experiments at CERN. His leadership and technical mastery ensured that MIT remained strong in CMS. But beyond his scientific legacy, we remember Sham for his humor, kindness, and “joie de vivre.”